It was 30 below zero outside. My son had just finished his game, and like always, he threw his smelly, sweat-soaked gear straight into his hockey bag and zipped it up. I packed us into the freezing truck, rushing home to start dinner, and like so many busy parents, we forgot the gear in the back of the truck overnight.

The next day, back at the rink for practice, he opened his bag to find cold, wet, frozen equipment. He hated every second of putting it on.

As my boys grew, and their gear got stinkier, the “smell of hockey” became a real problem in our household.

Over the years, we tried every drying gadget we could find. I still remember the giant metal tree - a contraption that, when slightly off balance, came crashing down onto my brand-new truck. That was the moment I knew there had to be a better way. Not just for us, but for hockey families everywhere.

I went into problem-solving mode. The spark came from an unlikely place: a farm, where I saw how heated air was used to push moisture out of grain bins in the fall. I knew there had to be a way we could make this work for sports bags.

At the time, I was working in a heating and hoarding business, and the pieces started coming together.

We made countless prototypes, and I mean countless. It took lots of hard work, trial and error, and personal sacrifice. But I believed in what I was building. What kept me going was knowing that I was showing my kids, and their friends, what it meant to follow your ideas, chase your goals, and bring something meaningful into the world.

That journey brings us to today, and to Hatty Pro Dry, a revolutionary product that takes the smell out of the game and makes hockey safer by eliminating harmful bacteria. Things we don’t always think about when we’re chasing the puck or scoring the OT goal, but that matter more than we know.

This is the cleaner way to play. And it’s about time.

Rod Skiffington
Inventor and Co-Founder of Hatty Pro Dry